metafour

Clase just turned 22 and has legitimate tools. Its a high risk profile that they likely won't be able to develop, but this really isn't a "boring" acquisition.

Then why did Teoscar Hernandez, a guy who has now hit for 130+ wRC+ in 4 of the last 5 seasons, only manage to land a 1-year deal last season? Why is Brandon Belt, who hit for a 138 wRC+ last season, sitting at home this year with no buyers? Both of those guys can play DH on any team in the league. You fail to realize that as soon as you say "this guy will play DH for me", the barometer for what is required out of the bat skyrockets before it becomes logically sound to commit a back-breaking term/AAV to that player. A 10-year, $300+ million contract on your payroll immediately strains your financial flexibility. It only begins to make sense to take on that type of contract if the 1B/DH player in question is a shoe-in 150+ wRC+ hitter year in and year our. Nobody is committing that to a "very good, sometimes elite" 1B/DH hitter. Why? Because there are lots of hitters available who I can stick at DH on a 1-3 year deal. Marcell Ozuna is signed to a 4-year, $65M deal. Teoscar signed for 1 year, $20M. Kyle Schwarber got 4 years, $79M at age 28/29. And here is the real kicker: as a ~25 year old, Yordan Alvarez signed a 6-year extension for just $115M. That is peanuts for a hitter of his caliber, and the guy was in his mid 20's. You are also being facetious by bringing up Ohtani. He only plays DH because he has also been pitching (the value of which was also equated into his $70M AAV contract). But even if Ohtani was only a DH and never pitched again - he has been one of the ~3 best hitters in all of baseball over the past 4 seasons. So he falls into a unicorn category, which hopefully we're all smart enough to understand that Vlad Guerrero unfortunately hasn't even come close to proving he is also a part of.

How much weight do you think that MLB teams are going to place on him being the "#1 prospect" 5+ seasons ago? That would be item #10 on a hypothetical list of 10 things they'd seriously consider as part of the decision making process. Gabriel Moreno was the #1 prospect for a hot minute too - does this mean that his eventual FA contract is going to be longer than it otherwise would have been? Eric Hosmer was 28 at the time of his signing and he was the #8 prospect at one point; he still didn't get a 10 year deal. Vlad's age absolutely increases his odds of getting a 10+ year deal, but his odds are also simultaneously decreased due to his weight/body concerns and more importantly the fact that he hasn't shown offensive consistency. And like I said, his odds are absolutely also decreased by the position he plays. MLB teams are getting smarter, not dumber. The terms on 1B-only free agents have been getting shorter in recent years, not longer. There is also a reason why something like ~10 of the 27 total 10+ year contracts signed in MLB history have gone to Shortstops. It isn't because Shortstops were more likely to be 27 years old, or because of their prospect ranking. There are only two players who landed 10+ year contracts as 1B-only players: Pujols and Votto. Both were hilariously more dominant hitters than Vlad currently is. Votto was coming off 5 straight seasons of 150+ wRC+ hitting, and two of those were 170+ wRC+ seasons. Pujols had literally already accumulated enough career WAR at the time of his 10 year contract to be a HoF lock. The guy had 8 career 7+ WAR seasons prior to him landing a 10 year deal. But hey, Vlad is close to .900 OPS this season and he's going to be 27 and was a #1 prospect! 10-years, $350 mill is on lock boyos!

Terrible comps? His market is other recent first basemen who signed as UFA's. There is no "unified" free agent market in the MLB. It is all position specific. I just gave you the list of all of the long-term guarantees given to players that play his position. It isn't a very long list, and there is a reason for that. Like you said, if you don’t like it, find a corner to cry in because those are the actual facts. And you are correct - Fielder is the best comparison, and he still didn't get 10 years. And teams will in fact look at how that Fielder contract played out, and they won't conclude that it doesn't count bEcAusE iT tUrnEd ouT to bE a RarE deGeNerAtiVe tHinG LOL. Was it a rare degenerative thing for him to be a fat tub of lard?

Why don't you actually look at the market then? The market is the market, and the last 1B to sign a 10 year deal as an UFA was Albert Pujols all the way back in 2012. Vlad Guerrero isn't a SS or an OF, so don't compare him to those players "in the market". Since 2011 these are the longest contracts handed out to 1B: Albert Pujols - 10 years (2012) Prince Fielder - 9 years (2012) Eric Hosmer - 8 years (2018) Chris Davis - 7 years (2016) Freddie Freeman - 6 years (2022) So actually, the "market" would show you that it is VERY RARE for a 1B-only player to receive a 10 year deal. Pujols is an outlier as he was arguably the best hitter in baseball when he signed that deal. The other thing the "market" shows you is that those 7+ year deals to 1B-only players all turned out to be horrific decisions for the signing team. Which is why the "market" has moved away from making those commitments. I don't know what "market" you think you are referring to; but it surely isn't the MLB free agent market. That market has become incredibly stingy for 1B-only players.

He has had a total of 1 of those seasons in 6 career seasons played. The reality is that even with him looking "fixed" recently, to guarantee anything like what you just tried to guarantee is beyond silly given his past history. Regardless of his natural talent, if his swing broke down so badly so easily before (like it did after 2021), what is to say that it won't happen again? If anything, he has shown the exact opposite of being a guy who "repeats his swing" without fail. It seems like any minor transgression or injury puts him into a massive risk of completely losing his bat path. To pretend like this is anything but a major risk is foolish. No, 10 years $300 million is absolutely not a "no brainer" move LMAO. If you count this season, he has had 2 out of 6 career seasons with "elite hitting performance". $300 mill for that? Yes he has the talent to put up 6 more similar seasons; but he had the talent to do that in previous seasons as well and he didn't.

It's not a travesty, but when you go what seems like 3-4 years straight where its the same story, and on the local side you see the same pattern of top draft picks failing to develop over the same sample period, it seems more than just coincidence or a result of "well they're 16 years old lottery tickets and you never know what you'll get". How many of those teams that had big-money busts had the same result multiple years in a row? The Jays have also seen a big drop off in "low and mid-tier" IFA signings succeeding as well. It's not like they have any recent examples of guys like Moreno or Kirk popping up to become major talents to offset busts like Bonilla.

When you spend $4+ million on an IFA kid the expectations are rightfully high, even with them being 16 years old. That is about the same amount of money that Yesavage will end up signing for. Those signings are seen as impact-caliber talents - when the player can't even perform in the FCL it is a really bad outcome. Any 16 year old who they deem good enough to receive $4 million should have tools; and tools alone should at least leads to SOME success in rookie-ball. They haven't had much success with their top IFA signings in recent years, which also lines up with draft picks not developing either. They really need to change something from a player development standpoint.

HS RHP Carson Messina signs for $550K. Wow what a signing. Extend Ross Atkins!

It makes no sense to suggest that waiting until an asset is performing at an 0.3 WAR rate before looking to trade him is in fact NOT a "genius baseball move"? Do you suffer from Smooth Brain Syndrome?

Yes, it is genius-level operation by the Orioles to wait until Mullins becomes as useful as Cavan Biggio before looking to trade him. Great asset management there. I don't think most other teams would be that smart to consider waiting until a player has no value whatsoever before trading them. If these guys were as smart as you think they are, they would have traded him after his 6 WAR season or shortly after. Seeing as how he popped up out of nowhere and was unlikely to play at that level moving forward.

Harper has been a consistently better hitter than Vlad, and like mentioned, bleeds less value because he can play OF (a bad defensive OF is still worth much more than a bad defensive 1B). He is also consistently better as a baserunner, even though he is still negative there.

Wow I didn't even realize the Orioles ruined Cedric Mullins like that smh. From 6 WAR to 0.3? He's not even 30 yet.

I can make a more detailed post later, but the Athletic's Top 50 trade deadline candidates list which was released yesterday actually had Bichette at #4, above Vlad who they had at #5.

Exactly. Come correct or don't come at all. Don't bring me joeblowmilbstuff.com as your "reference" for our apparently last place farm system.

Toronto's #6 prospect (Nimmala) is a better prospect than Miami's #5 prospect (Morlando - literally just drafted and a late 1st/2nd round talent who was drafted as an under slot pick with their 1st round pick). Even if injured Tiedemann is a higher likelihood of succeeding (with the same upside) as Noble Meyer who hasn't even figured out High A. I've never heard anyone ever refer to a Bleacher Report MiLB article or ranking, my guy. There is a reason for that.

As I was saying, 2nd round pick Khal Stephen signs for $1.1 mill (top of the 3rd round money) and 3rd round pick Johnny King signs for $1.2 mill. The rest of the banked pool (+5%) likely goes to Messina who I'm guessing signs for ~$700K+.

I always go to Bleacher Report first for my MiLB news! I legit didn't even know they had someone writing about baseball farm systems. Translation: those rankings are worth nothing. For example; how does Toronto rank behind Miami, if Miami's best prospect is Noble Meyer?

The following are signed per MLB.com Transactions: 2nd round RHP Khal Stephen 4th round 3B Sean Keys 4th round OF Nick Mitchell 5th round RHP Jackson Wentworth 9th round RHP Colby Holcombe 10th round OF Carter Cunningham 11th round RHP Troy Guthrie (HS) 13th round C Brock Tibbitts 1th round 2B JR Freethy 15th round RHP Jonathan Todd https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/roster/transactions

Confirmed not a punt, but slightly below-slot:

Sorry, but this is idiotic and makes zero sense. There is NO draft pick that is going to "save his job". Even if this kid miraculously comes up next year; do you seriously think that a #5 starter or mid-inning relief pitcher (which is the best outcome) is going to be the difference between him keeping his job vs. being fired LOL? What, a ~0.5 fWAR rookie coming up is going to save his job? How? Why? The 2nd rounder is a kid that they like who will likely sign for under-slot, which ties into them drafting 3 HS pitchers later who are all likely to sign over-slot deals. The 12th rounder (Carson Messina) is a Top 250 ranked prospect and will command a hell of a lot more than $150K. The 3rd rounder (Johnny King) has a slot value of ~$767K for his pick, but it took the Jays $1.5 million to sign a comparable HS pitcher last year (Landen Maroudis). Do the math my guy. They have employed this same strategy before, by the way. Both Josh Kasevich (2nd round) and Alan Roden (4th round) signed for under-slot in 2022. This was done so that they could go well over-slot with Tucker Toman with their compensatory 2nd round pick. They took 3 HS pitchers with their first 13 picks - that isn't "drafting to try to save your job" (which again is impossible anyway).

12th round is way too early to be drafting kids for jokes. Its possible that they have more money saved than we expect with those first 10 picks.

Grady Sizemore was an OK MLB player, but nothing to write home about. Similar to a Lourdes Gurriel today. They should have received more for Colon.

Colby Holcombe in the 9th round is interesting - he is massive and has hit ~99 in the past. He was a higher ranked prospect out of JUCO and was terribad for Miss State after transferring there. Could be a guy who figures it out as an MLB reliever.